


A Gang In Her Room

by my_mad_fatuation



Series: A Boy In Her Room [3]
Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 01:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8232050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_mad_fatuation/pseuds/my_mad_fatuation
Summary: It's her second year of university, and Rae and her friends are sharing a house off-campus, but after months without seeing him, she just wants some time alone with Finn. Is that too much to ask?





	

There was a gang in her room.

Chloe, Izzy, Archie, and Chop were all helping Rae move her stuff in from her mum’s car. For their second year at uni, her and the gang decided to rent a terraced house together, which was only a ten-minute bus ride from campus.

“Have you got everything, then?” her mum asked when Rae returned to the car for the last of her belongings.

“I think so,” she replied.

Her mum had already had a tour of the house before they started unloading all of Rae’s things just to make sure that she approved of her daughter’s living conditions.

Rae was glad that her mum left before Finn arrived, though, because she didn’t want to scare him away by having him meet her mother, again. Besides, she hadn’t seen him in person for months, so she was slightly worried that he wouldn’t like her anymore anyway. (Skype dates just weren’t the same.)

He apologized for being late when he finally got there, and everyone helped him move his stuff into his room. He smiled briefly at Rae, who wanted to give him a proper greeting, but they never had a moment alone together between moving his stuff in and going out to get food as a group.

“I’d like to make a toast,” said Chop at dinner, holding up his drink. “To us and this next year as housemates—may we get through it without killing one another! Cheers!”

They all clinked their glasses together, though Rae couldn’t make eye contact with Finn who was seated across from her. It was just too weird, after months of only seeing him online, despite the fact that they’d been dating for nearly a year now.

After stopping at the supermarket to stock up on essentials, they all returned to the house where they sat around the lounge, talking about what they had done over the summer holiday. It seemed that Rae was the only one who hadn’t gone anywhere interesting over the break. She spent pretty much the entire summer on her computer. She hadn’t even gone to visit Finn, because he had his cousins staying with him most of the summer.

But now she wondered if that was just an excuse he made up so he wouldn’t have to see her, because he seemed to have no interest in her now. They still had not spoken directly to each other since he arrived, although she was the one who kept avoiding his eyes.

She decided to call it a night when the others started to pull out the not-so-regular cigarettes, since she did not need the headache. She glanced at Finn as she stood up and subtly motioned with her head for him to follow her out of the room and to the staircase.

“Hey,” he said as he held onto her hand.

“Hey,” she replied.

He pulled her closer. “You haven’t given me a proper hello yet.”

“Neither have you.”

“Well, hello, then.” He placed his free hand on the side of her face and kissed her.

“Hi,” she said quietly once their lips parted.

He smiled and kissed her again. She thought about asking him to come up to her room with her, since it had been months, but before she could he told her goodnight and returned to the others in the lounge.

***

After spending a couple of hours online, with her headphones on to drown out the sound of laughter coming up the stairs, Rae went to bed feeling rejected and woke up with a humiliation hangover. She was startled by a knock on her door, though, since she assumed she’d be the first one awake that morning.

“Rae? Are you up?” asked Chloe through the door.

“Yeah, come in,” Rae replied groggily.

Chloe entered wearing her pyjamas and sat on the end of Rae’s bed. “You missed a good time last night,” she said. “We played Cards Against Humanity and it was so funny.”

“I thought you hated that game.”

“Only when I’m sober.”

“Oh, my mistake.”

“Anyway, you should have stayed and hung out with us.”

“I was tired,” Rae said in a huff. “Besides, I was hoping for some alone time…”

“You were alone.”

“I mean alone time with Finn!” she hissed, hoping no one could overhear her.

“Oh. Well, why didn’t you just—”

“He told me goodnight before I had a chance to— Never mind. It doesn’t matter. He obviously doesn’t like me anymore, so now we’re going to have to break up and it’s going to be really awkward in the house and I’ll have to move out and—”

“Come on, Rae, none of that’s true,” said Chloe. “What makes you think he doesn’t like you?”

“He would rather play that stupid game than spend time with me!”

“It’s just ‘cause he hadn’t hung out with us in months,” she tried to explain.

“Well, he hasn’t had sex with me in months, either.”

“Really? Not even online?”

Rae scrunched up her face in distaste. She wasn’t going to mention that one time she watched him while he jerked off over Skype because it made her feel weird. Besides, how could that alone have been enough to sustain him for all those months, and even now? Unless…

Her eyes shot wide open and she sat up straight. “What if he cheated on me over the summer?”

“Now you’re just jumping to conclusions,” Chloe said, trying to calm her friend. “How about you talk to him first before you start planning to move out?”

***

Rae got showered and dressed before heading down to the kitchen with Chloe to get some breakfast. Chop was already there, but there was no sign of Finn, even though his bedroom door was open when they walked past.

“Raemundo!” Chop said to her. “You missed a hell of a game last night.”

“So I hear,” she said as she got her cereal.

“Chop, have you seen Finn this morning?” Chloe asked. Rae snapped her head around to glare at her.

“Yeah, I think he went for a run,” he replied. “He’s strange, that one.”

Rae was about to sit down when she heard the front door open, and she went to go head Finn off at his room.

“Hey,” he said to her with a smile when he saw her, as if nothing was wrong.

“Hey,” she replied, following him into his room. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Uh, sure, but can it wait ‘till I shower? I’m all sweaty right now.”

She watched as he walked back out of the room carrying his towel and wondered why he didn’t even try to give her a kiss. His sweatiness shouldn’t have mattered—in fact, she rather enjoyed the smell of his sweat, which he knew. So there was no reason for him to shower before talking to her other than to avoid her, she decided.

By the time he’d finished his shower and gotten dressed, the others were all awake and ready to get going to campus to pick up their textbooks.

They all compared class schedules on the bus ride over. Rae and Archie had the same history class, so they decided to split the cost of one textbook to share, and she had a class with Chloe, but the readings for that course were all online.

She had no classes with Finn, however, and their schedules were almost completely opposite. Most of the time that she was in class, he was not, and vice versa. Were they ever going to spend time together again?

The campus bookstore was crowded, so it took them a while to pick up their books. They stopped at their old dining hall for lunch before heading back to the house.

It seemed like Rae was never going to get a chance to talk to Finn alone when everyone congregated in the lounge, but one by one they all trickled out until it was only the two of them left.

“I should probably put these books away—” he began, but she grabbed his arm before he could get up.

“Why are you avoiding me?” she asked.

He gave her a quizzical expression. “I’m not avoiding you.”

“We finally get a moment alone together and you want to go put away your books!”

“If you must know, I was going to ask for your assistance. That way we could go somewhere a little less out in the open.”

“Oh…”

“I mean, if you’d rather hang out here, that’s fine—”

“Oh, shut up and let’s go.”

She followed him into his room and shut the door behind them. He started to unfasten his trousers almost immediately.

“So we’re just jumping right in, I guess,” she said.

“Sorry, but I promised Chop I’d help him move the furniture in his room this afternoon,” he explained, “and, besides, it’s been four months, what did you expect?”

“I’m just surprised since you didn’t seem to have an interest last night.”

“Who says I didn’t have an interest?”

“Well, you didn’t come upstairs with me.”

“That’s ‘cause you were going to bed early. I thought you weren’t feeling well. If I had known—”

“Never mind, let’s just get this over with,” she said as she unzipped her sweater.

“How romantic.”

“Romance is for people who haven’t been waiting four months, yeah?”

He shrugged and was about to take off his shirt when there was a knock at the door. He fastened his trousers and went to answer it. Rae could hear Chop’s voice as she hid behind the door.

“You gonna help me move my stuff?”

“Can it wait fifteen minutes?” Finn asked. He glanced over at Rae behind the door for a moment and then added, “Ten minutes.”

“You got Raemundo in there?”

Rae started to turn red and zipped up her sweater before emerging from behind the door. “It’s fine, we can talk later,” she said as she left the room quickly, arms folded.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” said Chop.

“You’re not interrupting, I have to go anyway,” she said, hurrying towards the stairs up to her room. As much as she wanted some _alone time_ with Finn, she didn’t want other people knowing all about it.

She hadn’t really thought about it before, but living in a house with all her friends was a little more close quarters than she had anticipated. Although they technically had more space than last year in residence, it was easier to mind one’s own business in a hall with dozens of other students than in a house with just the six of them.

***

The whole gang was hanging out in the lounge again that night, though this time it was Finn who left first since he had an early morning class the next day. Rae considered following him, but his bedroom shared a wall with the lounge and she didn’t like the idea of everyone else being able to hear them.

She went to bed early as well, hoping to catch him before he left for class in the morning, but he was already gone by the time she came downstairs. He texted her on his way, however, asking if she wanted to meet him on campus for lunch between their classes. At least then they would have a chance to talk.

Except that when Archie found out Rae was leaving early to get lunch on campus, he insisted on tagging along since they had a class together in the afternoon.

“Isn’t it so strange to be back?” Archie said, oblivious to the fact that he was the third wheel at lunch.

“Yeah, but in a way it’s almost like we never left,” said Finn, who also seemed oblivious to the fact that Archie was the third wheel; he just kept chatting with him as if nothing was wrong. It made Rae feel like she was the third wheel instead…

Her class ended early that afternoon, so she rushed home—by herself, because Archie had another class afterwards—hoping to catch Finn alone at the house. She barely had to walk through the door to know that wasn’t going to happen, though.

Izzy and Chop appeared to be arguing about the temperature of the house.

“It’s too cold!” Izzy said while trying to wrestle Chop for control of the thermostat.

“Then put on another sweater!” he replied, fending her off. “It was way too hot in here last night; I had to have the window open in my room, which is how I ended up fighting a giant fucking moth!”

“You two fight like an old married couple,” Chloe said as she sat on the sofa, playing with her phone.

They stopped and looked at her, embarrassed.

“Hey, have any of you seen Finn?” Rae asked, interrupting the awkward silence that had taken over the room.

“I think he’s in his room,” said Chop.

“Thanks,” she replied as she walked through the lounge towards Finn’s room. “Carry on.”

Instead of knocking on his door, however, she went up the stairs to her room and texted him to come meet her up there.

_“Why?”_ he asked.

_“Everyone else is downstairs right now.”_

_“Just a sec.”_

She waited several minutes but he never showed up.

_“Where are you?”_ she texted back.

No response.

Quietly, she crept down the stairs and peered into the lounge, only to discover that Finn had gotten roped into the thermostat argument as well.

“It’s better to have it at a cooler temperature and wear more layers,” he explained. “It saves on heating costs, and it means we can each wear as many layers as we need to be comfortable.”

“But I’m already wearing two sweaters,” said Izzy, “and I’m still cold!”

“Raemundo,” Chop said when he spotted Rae at the bottom of the steps. “Weigh in on this, will ya? You’re fine with it cooler, right?”

“I don’t know…” she said slowly, not entirely sure how she became a part of this conversation.

“You know it’s just going to be a fifty-fifty split, right?” said Chloe, looking up from her phone. “Me and Iz and Archie will want it warmer, and you boys and Rae will want it cooler.”

“How do you know I’d want it cooler?” Rae asked, feeling like she’d just been insulted somehow.

“You like dressing in bulky layers all the time anyway.”

“That’s not true…”

“Really? I’ve never seen you wear a skirt without leggings, or a t-shirt without a long-sleeve shirt underneath,” Chloe said. “I don’t know if you’re hiding or what—”

“How did this become about the way I dress?” Rae said as she folded her arms self-consciously.

“Yeah,” said Chop. “I don’t give a shit what Rae chooses to wear—no offense—as long as I can keep the temperature at twenty goddamn degrees!”

“Twenty-four!” said Izzy.

“How about we settle for twenty-two, yeah?” Finn suggested.

Chop glared at Izzy for a moment before saying, “Fine.”

“Fine,” she said as well.

They each plodded towards their respective bedrooms, which meant that Izzy was upstairs, and her room shared a wall with Rae’s. So much for alone time…

***

“Somebody should say something,” said Chloe as the gang sat around the lounge while the next-door neighbours partied loudly. “I can’t hear myself think.”

“We could call the police,” Izzy suggested.

“Or a couple of us could go over there and ask them to keep it down,” Chloe added.

“Are you offering?” asked Chop.

“I was thinking more like you and Finn.”

“All right,” he said, standing up. “Come on, Finn. We have men’s work to do.”

Finn groaned but stood up as well from his seat next to Rae, giving her a pat on the knee as he did. “We shall return,” he said.

And they did return, but the party was not any quieter.

“What happened?” Chloe asked.

“You’ll never guess who lives there,” Finn said expressionlessly.

“Those douchebags from our residence last year!” Chop exclaimed.

“No!” said Izzy.

“You mean those guys who harassed us all the time?” said Chloe.

Finn nodded, clearly unimpressed. “They had some choice words for us, but I won’t repeat them.”

“What do we do?” Izzy asked.

“We can’t call the police or else they’ll probably find other ways to make our lives miserable,” said Archie.

“Well, I’m going to sit in my room with my headphones on, then,” said Chloe. “Because this racket is unbearable.” She got up to leave and Izzy followed.

“Yeah, that’s probably the best we can do,” Archie agreed, getting up as well.

“Suit yourselves,” Chop said. “I’m just gonna turn the telly up really loud to drown them out.”

Combatting volume with more volume didn’t seem like an appealing solution to Rae, who looked over at Finn expectantly, waiting for him to suggest an alternative.

He shrugged and nodded his head sideways towards the stairs. She nodded back in agreement and rose quietly from her seat. Chop didn’t seem to notice as the two of them left the room and headed upstairs.

The doors of everyone else’s rooms were shut, so nobody saw them go into Rae’s room together. This was going to be perfect.

She closed the door behind them as Finn flopped onto her bed. “You’re fairly presumptuous,” she said.

“I’m a lot of things,” he said. “Now get over here.”

She took a few steps towards him, but then stopped and frowned when she heard a noise coming through the wall from the neighbours’ place, besides the horrible music. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

There was the sound of loud but muffled talking from the other side of the wall, though Rae couldn’t make out what was being said.

“There are people talking in the adjacent room next door,” she added, pointing at the wall.

Finn scooted up to the head of the bed so he could press his ear against the wall. “I can’t tell what they’re talking about, but there’s definitely a couple people in there.”

Rae came and sat next to him so she could hear better. The chatter turned into flirty laughter, which turned into moaning, which—

“Oh my god!” she said, clamping her hands over her ears. “They’re having S-E-X,” she added in a loud whisper.

“Come on, you know I can’t spell,” he said jokingly.

“This is disgusting.”

“This is giving me flashbacks to last year.”

“Well, talk about a mood-killer.”

“You know,” he said slyly, “if hearing them is putting us off, then maybe hearing us would put them off…”

“Ugh, I’m not doing it with you while I can hear what’s-his-name’s grunting,” she said.

“Yeah, but they don’t have to know that.” He was smiling and she knew he could only mean one thing.

And so they started bouncing on the bed and shaking the headboard and making really fake sex noises to one-up the neighbours.

***

“A little birdie tells me you two had a fun time last night,” Chop said to Rae and Finn when he and Archie came into the kitchen and found them eating breakfast.

“Did you really have to be so loud, though?” Archie added, grimacing. “I could hear you through my headphones.”

Rae started turning red. It had been funny at the time, but she hadn’t thought about their housemates hearing them.

“We were only pretending,” Finn explained. “It was the folks next door who were fucking loudly for real.”

“Whatever you say,” said Chop.

“Don’t worry,” said Finn, “Rae’s not usually that vocal when she—”

“Oh my god, shut up!” Rae said forcefully.

Chop snickered a little and Rae got up to leave. “Come on, Raemundo, we were only joking,” he said.

“I know,” she replied, pretending she wasn’t feeling as humiliated as she was. “I just have a bunch of reading to do for tomorrow’s class, so…”

She went upstairs to lie on her bed in a huff. She was annoyed. Annoyed at the neighbour for ruining the mood last night. Annoyed at her housemates for teasing her and Finn. And annoyed at Finn for going along with it like he wasn’t bothered.

How could he do that? How could he just not be embarrassed about stuff? How could he not seem to care that they’d been here for most of a week and hadn’t done anything together besides pretend to have sex?

Why wasn’t he just as annoyed as she was?

After a while, she realized she might as well get those readings done for tomorrow, so she got up and went over to her desk to get her books. She glanced at the class schedules on her corkboard—they all had copies of each other’s schedules so they could plan group activities—and she noticed something. Monday afternoon, after her English seminar but before Finn’s Social Anthropology class, there was a period of time when the others were all in classes. This was her window of opportunity.

It was a small window, to be fair—less than an hour, taking travel time into consideration—but doable. Or at least it would have to be.

***

Rae texted Finn to let him know she was on her way home Monday afternoon as she got on the bus. She sat down near the back and perused her Instagram feed until she heard the sound of malicious laughter approaching.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Bessie the cow,” said one of the pricks from next door.

Rae just ignored them and kept looking at her phone, but they surrounded her, one sitting in the seat ahead of her and one in the seat across the aisle.

“What are you doing on this bus?” the first guy asked her patronizingly. “Don’t tell me you live with those idiots next door to us.”

She continued to ignore them.

“That wasn’t you making all that noise the other night, was it?” he continued. “Because that is thoroughly disgusting. The thought of anyone getting on all this makes me physically ill, you know.” He waved his hand, indicating he was talking about her body but she kept looking at her phone.

“Hey,” said the second guy as he kicked her in the leg. “Listen to ‘im. How’s he supposed to please his lady with the thought of you making his dick soft?” He chuckled a little.

“Fuck you,” the first guy said to him. “I don’t have any trouble pleasing my lady.”

“Really?” Rae said flippantly, before she realized what she was doing.

“Excuse me?”

“It sounded like she was faking it to me,” she replied. “But I don’t blame her. Your grunting is quite off-putting.”

“You’re a fucking cunt,” he said loudly, and an older woman sitting ahead of them turned around, looking shocked.

“He’s got Tourette’s,” the second guy said to her, then turned back around and chuckled again.

Rae pressed the button to request the next stop, even though it was a couple stops before her own. She figured she’d rather walk the few extra blocks alone than stay on the bus with these two.

“Where’re you goin’, Bessie?” the first guy asked as she stood up. “Don’t you wanna walk home with us?” His friend laughed.

She knew that by leaving the bus, she was letting them win, but she just couldn’t take the degradation anymore. She started walking in the direction of her house, which was an extra ten minutes away now.

When she got there, Finn was waiting on the front steps for her.

“What’re you doing?” she asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said. “I went to the bus stop to wait for you, but you weren’t there. Our charming neighbours told me you’d gotten off at an earlier stop. What happened?”

“They happened,” she replied as she followed him into the house. “They called me horrible things and wouldn’t leave me alone, and I couldn’t just sit there and take the abuse any longer.”

“I ought to give those jerks a piece of my mind,” he said, rolling up his sleeve.

“Please, don’t. You’ll just make it worse.”

“Do you need anything? Lunch? A hug?”

She sighed. “I think I just need to be alone for a while.”

He looked concerned, but let her trudge up the stairs to her room alone. Part of her wanted him to follow her anyway and keep her company in her distressed state, but part of her really did want to be by herself. She felt it was all she deserved…

***

The rest of the week was more of the same for Rae. Going to class during the day, spending evenings with the gang, never getting a moment alone with Finn.

She heard the neighbour’s sex noises a few more times while she was in her room, and each time she would bang on the wall until she heard the muffled sound of him yelling, “Fuck off!” at which point she would bang louder.

The weekend found the housemates all holed up in their individual rooms with their headphones on to drown out the sound of partying next door. The music was so loud that it didn’t really work, though.

Frustrated, Rae decided to steel herself and confront the neighbours; at the very least it would be cathartic to yell at them for a little while. She headed downstairs and out the front door, but when she got outside, she noticed one of them sitting on their front step. (She still didn’t know their names, but she recognized that he was the ever-so-slightly less obnoxious one.)

“Hey!” she said angrily.

He lifted his head and turned to look at her. “What?”

“Do you mind keeping it down in there? Some of us are trying to actually use our brains.”

“Does it look like I’m the one controlling the volume?” he said.

“You live here, don’t you?”

“That doesn’t mean I’m in charge.”

“Are you just his lackey, then?”

He looked down at his hands and chuckled humourlessly. “Something like that.”

That wasn’t the reaction she was expecting from him.

“Look,” he continued, still staring at his hands, “I’m sorry about the stuff he said to you the other day on the bus.”

Not what she was expecting at all.

“Calling you Bessie and, you know… I’m sorry.”

“If you’re so sorry about it, why do you laugh when he does that sort of stuff?” she said, still feeling like she should be on the offensive despite his confession.

“I dunno. I thought it was funny at the time. I guess I didn’t realize how much it bothered you.”

“How could it not bother me?”

He shrugged. “You seemed tough. You always just ignore us.”

“That’s because I wanted you to leave me alone.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I’m not going to defend my behaviour.”

Rae didn’t know what to say. Getting an apology from one of these pricks was the last thing she’d ever thought would happen. “Well… good…”

“Can we start over?” he asked, standing up.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m Charles,” he said as he reached across the low hedge to shake her hand.

“Rae…” she said uncertainly.

“Good to meet ya, Rae.”

“I hope you understand that I can’t quite say the same, yet.”

“Fair enough.” He glanced back at his door. “I should probably get inside before my master realizes I’m gone,” he said jokingly. “I’ll see what I can do about the volume, though.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

He nodded curtly and headed back into his house before Rae headed back into hers. By the time she reached her bedroom, the music next door seemed noticeably quieter.

***

Monday afternoon, Rae rushed from her class to catch the bus home so she could finally spend some time alone with Finn. Just as she was about to take her seat, however, she heard a familiar voice call out, “Hey, Bessie,” from the front of the bus.

It was quickly followed by the sound of someone getting elbowed in the ribs and, “What the fuck was that for?”

“Give it a rest, man,” she heard someone else say, and looked up to see Charles pushing his friend past her towards the very back of the bus.

The bus ride continued without disruption until Rae got off at the stop by her house. She walked quickly to try and avoid the neighbours.

“I’ve never seen something so big move so fast,” the other neighbour said loudly behind her.

“Come on, that’s enough,” said Charles.

“What? D’you fancy her or summat?”

“No, I just think there’s no need to bother her, that’s all.”

“Nah, man, you wanna fuck the fatty, don’t ya?”

“Why do you have to be such a dick all the time?”

“I don’t hear you denying it. You wanna pork Miss Piggy.”

“Of course I don’t! Don’t be an idiot.”

Rae tried to walk even faster without breaking into an embarrassing run.

“Look what you did, you hurt Bessie’s feelings,” said the first guy.

“Oh, shut up,” said Charles.

Rae jogged the last few steps to her front door and fumbled to get her key in the lock before she could hear any more of this conversation. Once she was inside, she collapsed against the door and began sobbing. Even though Charles was defending her—sort of—they’d somehow made her feel worse than they usually did.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Finn asked when he came out of his room and found her by the front door.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“Was it those guys again?”

She nodded slightly.

“All right, that’s it,” he said as he moved her aside so he could go out the front door.

“Wait, Finn, don’t!” She tried to tug on his arm, but he was determined to leave, and he stormed over to the neighbours’ house and banged on the door as Rae followed him.

The more obnoxious one answered. “What do you want?”

“What is your problem?” Finn said angrily. “Why do you feel the need to torment people all the time?”

The guy laughed a little. “Did your girlfriend come crying to you? I were only trying to have a conversation with her; she was the one being rude, ignoring me.”

“Just leave it, Finn!” said Rae.

“Yeah, listen to her, Finn. She’s not worth the fuss, is she?”

And that was when Finn punched him in the face. Rae yelped and covered her mouth just as Charles came out to see what the commotion was about.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked Finn, giving him a shove.

“I’ve told you both to leave Rae alone, but you just don’t listen.” Finn shoved him back.

“Hey, I’ve already apologized to her, buddy.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you wanna stick it in ‘er,” said the first guy, rubbing the side of his face.

“I told you to shut up!” said Charles.

“Let’s just go, Finn!” Rae pleaded.

Finn turned to look at her like he was going to argue, but then his expression softened and he nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”

He aggressively took a step towards the other guys, causing them to flinch, then retreated and followed Rae back inside the house.

“I told you to leave it,” she said to him angrily.

“I know, but I couldn’t just let him keep talking about you like that.”

“I just wanted to come home and spend some time with you, for once, and you have to make it about them!”

“I’m sorry. But I can spend time with you now—at least a little before my class.”

“I have a headache,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m just going to lie down.”

“Rae…”

“Go ice your hand or something.”

***

Rae and the gang spent most of their time the following week on schoolwork, as the first tests and assignments were coming up, so she hardly saw anyone for more than a few minutes at a time outside of class.

The neighbours didn’t harass her, though, even when they were on the same bus as her Thursday morning, and they didn’t throw a loud party that weekend. (Although they could be heard yelling at each other through the walls occasionally.)

It was a strange week.

Rae saw Finn even less than usual because he was busy with school stuff, but she also found herself avoiding him when he wasn’t. On more than one occasion, she’d come downstairs to find him watching television alone in the lounge and went straight back upstairs again before he noticed her.

Sometimes she’d go through the kitchen and out the back garden to get out of the house without crossing his path. The grass was way too tall by the back gate, making it difficult to open and close, but it seemed like the better option at the time. Otherwise he’d ask her why she was avoiding him, and she didn’t have an answer.

One time she snuck out the back and ran into Charles in the alleyway as he was bringing in the bins.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

“Going to class,” she said.

“Don’t you have a front door?”

“I like going this way.”

“Okay, then,” he said, giving her a skeptical look. “By the way, can you make sure your boyfriend doesn’t punch me in the face for talking to you right now?”

“Hey, I didn’t ask him to do that! I didn’t want him talking to you guys at all. You’re both creeps who aren’t worth the time.”

He tossed the bins to the ground angrily. “Look, I’ve apologized to you and I’ve stopped him from making fun of you anymore, so how does that make me a creep?”

“You think just because you apologize for the shitty things you do that makes them not shitty?”

“I’ve tried being nice to you, but you’ve been nothing but antagonistic towards me.”

“That’s a big word for you.”

“Like that!”

“Sorry for not wanting to be friends with one of the guys who made my first year of uni a living hell.”

“I’m not trying to be your friend; I just thought we could be civil as neighbours for once.”

“Why now? Why are you civil all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know. I grew up! Maybe you should, too.”

Rae glared at him indignantly. “I have to catch the bus.”

He stepped aside to let her pass and she walked away quickly

***

“I can’t believe this is finally happening,” she said, lying on her side, facing him.

“I know,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming.”

“Can you imagine that I used to think you didn’t like me?” She laughed a little.

“Lately it’s seemed like you don’t like me.”

“I’ve just had a lot going on…”

“I get it.” He brushed a strand of hair off her face. “But we’re here now, together.”

She kissed him and they rolled around until he was on top of her. She could feel him pressing against her, ready.

Rae’s alarm went off, waking her up. Her face felt flushed as she remembered what she’d just been dreaming about, which horrified her. A sexy dream… about Charles! What the fuck was wrong with her?

“Nothing’s wrong with you,” Chloe said after Rae had told her and Izzy about the dream—in confidence. “It’s a perfectly normal thing, and I wouldn’t read too much into it.”

“I had a dream about my Psych professor the other day,” Izzy confessed. “And he’s, like, fifty.”

“Isn’t it kind of ironic to have a sex dream about your Psychology professor?” said Rae. “That’s like having a sex dream about Freud.”

“No, my point is it doesn’t mean anything! I’m not secretly interested in him, I just happened to be reading over my class notes before bed.”

“Exactly,” said Chloe. “You said that you’d run into Charles that morning—it’s your brain processing and sorting the day’s information. It just gets kind of jumbled along the way.”

“So, should I tell Finn about it—”

“No!” Chloe and Izzy said in unison.

“He’s already paranoid that you’re going to dump him,” Chloe added.

“Why would he think that?”

“He says you’ve been avoiding him.”

Rae scrunched up her face in embarrassment.

“Why have you been avoiding him?” asked Izzy.

“I don’t know…” But Rae did sort of know; she was preemptively rejecting him before he could reject her.

“How about the rest of us all go out to the pub tonight or something and leave you two alone in the house to talk… or whatever,” Chloe suggested.

***

“So…” Rae said as she at the end of her bed next to Finn.

“So,” he replied.

“Here we are.”

“Yep.”

“This is kind of awkward, isn’t it?”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

They sat in silence for a moment before he added, “You know what I really want to do right now?”

She shook her head and he scooted himself up to the top of the bed where he got to his knees and started bouncing.

“Do you think he’s in there?” he whispered, pointing to the wall that connected to the neighbours’ house.

“I dunno.”

He smiled a bit and kept bouncing. “Unh, yeah,” he groaned, smacking the wall with his hand.

Rae laughed a little and joined him. “Ooh, Finn, yes! Don’t stop!”

They continued their obviously fake noises until they heard, “Shut the fuck up!” coming through the wall. They both laughed.

They stopped and looked at each other for a moment, slightly out of breath from all the bouncing, before Finn said, “Ah, fuck it. I don’t care if he can hear us,” and kissed her.

***

Rae and Finn had been whispering to each other in the corner of the room for several minutes when he said loudly to the rest of the gang, “Okay, this is your five-minute warning to get your headphones on. We’re going upstairs.”

Chloe and Izzy ran up the stairs ahead of them to their respective rooms to get their headphones, while Archie and Chop stayed in the lounge and cranked the television’s volume.

Rae giggled as she and Finn made their way up to her room, for there was only one thing (marginally) more fun than obnoxiously loud fake sex…

 

 


End file.
